An optical system for real-time monitoring of blood coagulability during medical operations has been developed by scientists in the US. Jose Rafael Guzman-Sepulveda and colleagues at the University of Central Florida developed and tested a fibre-based light-scattering technique that analyses the backscattered signal from blood. Plots of power spectral density versus frequency reveal different signatures for normal coagulation and anticoagulation of blood when anti-clotting agents such as heparin are administered. Light from a 670-nm-wavelength super-luminescent diode with 40 nm bandwidth is sent to the sample via an optical fibre. As a preliminary test, the team tried the approach on hydrogels with nanoparticles, before moving to blood, in which red blood cells dominate scattering properties. The approach allows coagulability to be monitored continuously in real time without special sample preparation in a clinical setting.
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Pile, D. Blood monitoring. Nature Photon 11, 208 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2017.51
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2017.51
